AUSTIN -- Education is a key priority touted by the political campaigns of two familiar foes fighting to represent Northeast and West El Paso in the Texas Legislature.

But that's where the similarities end for Republican state Rep. Dee Margo and his Democratic opponent, Joe Moody, whose face-to-face interactions with voters, campaign fliers and television advertisements preach their commitment to quality education and attempt to cast each other as harmful to public schools.

Margo and Moody are facing off for the third time and are attempting to sway voters on the education issue, often cited as a top priority in state and national polls during elections.

They are running out of time to make their cases. Early voting will start Monday for the Nov. 6 general election that will determine which of the two will return to Austin to represent House District 78.

Richard Pineda, a communications professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, said each candidate has pushed to appeal to the base of his own party and has focused less on attracting voters who may not traditionally support him.

"In some ways what you would imagine would be the low-hanging fruit and a consistent attack line would be all of the mistakes or all of the baggage that Margo has developed over the last session of the Legislature," Pineda said. "But the truth is that there's not really much there in the attacks that Moody is making that is unique or that sound different from the previous election cycle."

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Margo "fell in line with the party vote," Pineda said. "I don't know what Moody could do except for point to that and say, 'See, I told you he was a Republican.' "

Rating Republican results

The two men first clashed during the 2008 presidential election year, which brought a surge of Democratic voters energized by the candidacy of President Barack Obama. Moody beat Margo by 3,258 votes.

Margo challenged Moody to a rematch in 2010, edging out the Democrat by 1,410 votes in a year when Republicans statewide saw a rise at the polls because of dissatisfaction with the federal government.

Both candidates are competing for the seat once again during another presidential election year that appears to be marked by partisanship. Each has his own take on Margo's place in the delegation as the only Republican from El Paso in a legislature dominated by conservatives.

Margo said he helped his Democratic colleagues with the Republican majority and he argues that his return to the Legislature would allow him to gather support for local measures that did not get approved the past legislative session.

Moody said Margo had his chance to make good on his promises that he could get more for El Paso because he was part of the majority party in the Legislature. But Moody said Margo instead voted with the Republican Party on $15 billion in state budget cuts, which included $5.4 billion in cuts to public education.

That vote led to cuts in positions for teachers and staff at El Paso schools and caused tuition increases at UTEP and El Paso Community College, Moody said.

"Where were the bonuses for El Paso based on his being part of the party in power?" Moody asked. "They weren't there."

The state House had a 77-73 split favoring Republicans when Moody was elected. That figure drastically changed during the 2010 election that provided Republicans with a 101-49 seat advantage in the state House, giving the party the ability to pass legislation without a single vote from a Democrat.

Margo, who was among the Republicans who won office two years ago, maintains that his presence allows El Paso to have a voice with the ruling party in the state.

"Nobody, not Republicans or Democrats, walked out of appropriations or passing the budget jumping for joy, but there was no appetite for taxes, and given the fragile nature of our economy, I agreed," Margo said. "We did the best we could with the hand we were dealt. To say otherwise would be disingenuous, frankly."

Margo has his own critique of Moody's education record. He said Moody voted for a budget that funded a portion of the state's public education with one-time federal stimulus dollars, leaving the next set of lawmakers to make up for the gap.

"We did the best we could to be as level as we could given the prior years that we were dealing with," Margo said.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry and state lawmakers in 2009 used $3.25 billion in one-time federal stimulus funds in place of state money for education to balance the budget and avoid drawing down the rainy-day fund.

"The 2009 budget was passed with the blessing of the Republican governor," Moody said. "Dee's party decided to use stimulus funds; otherwise, Rick Perry would have been forced to cut education or raise taxes when he was running for governor. Instead, they put it off until 2011 because they never fixed the mess they made in 2006."

Moody was referring to the recurring budget deficit that lawmakers created in 2006 when they lowered local school district property taxes by one-third and promised to make up the difference in school funding primarily through reworked business taxes.

The money collected through the tax-swap plan did not totally offset expenditures, leaving the state with a biennium structural deficit of about $10 billion.

Legislative work

Margo primarily voted with the Republican majority on issues such as cutting the family-planning services budget and making voters show photo identification before casting ballots. He also voted in favor of requiring women to get pre-abortion sonograms, listen as a doctor describes the fetus and wait 24 hours before the procedure

One of the two bills Margo authored his freshman year in the state House became a law. The bill set certain qualification guidelines for appointees to the University Medical Center of El Paso's Board of Managers that prevented employees of the county or the hospital district and their immediate relatives from serving on the board.

The first-time legislator also co-authored or joint-authored about 60 bills and was a sponsor on seven others, which included a measure by state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, to establish a grant program for border prosecutors.

"The border prosecution unit was probably the most important because I got that done out of appropriations money first, and then Kirk Watson came to me to get me to co-sponsor the bill to put it in statute," Margo said.

A group of state senators blocked an amendment by Margo that would have allowed UTEP to join a small list of universities slated to tap into a pot of about $93 million over two years.

Lawmakers also shot down an attempt by Margo to approve state-funded tuition revenue bonds for a third building at Texas Tech's Paul L. Foster School of Medicine. If his amendment had gone to a vote and passed, state funding for the medical school's $58.5 million tuition revenue bond could not have been issued before Sept. 1, 2015. The next legislative session would have the final say on whether to honor the measure.

Moody authored eight bills when he was in the Legislature in 2009. Three of those bills became law, including an anti-gang measure that strengthened the Department of Public Safety's ability to go after transnational gangs.

"Passing the largest piece of anti-gang legislation in the state was a huge deal," Moody said. "It really required a lot of work from day one of the session. That bill was crucial to law enforcement to give them the tools to start to combat transnational gangs in different ways."

Moody also co-authored or joint-authored more than 90 bills and sponsored about 30 pieces of legislation. He was the House sponsor of a bill with Republican Sen. Jane Nelson that expanded funding to domestic violence shelters by creating a fee paid by convicted offenders.

He also filed a bill that sought a property-tax exemption for veterans who have a disability rating of 100 percent. Moody's bill did not pass, but a similar measure became law.

What's next?

Lawmakers who are elected in November will contend with the controversial debate about using taxpayer dollars to offer vouchers to public school students who want to attend private school and the ongoing lawsuits over whether the state is meeting its constitutional obligations to properly fund public schools.

Lawmakers also may have to consider legislation that would call for an end to in-state tuition at universities for qualifying undocumented immigrants and the return of an anti-sanctuary-cities measure, which would put local governments at risk of losing state grant money if they establish a policy that prohibits local law enforcement from questioning the immigration status of people they detain.

Moody does not support school vouchers. He believes that the state is not properly funding public schools and that low-income students will be left out because the vouchers will not cover the full cost of attending private school.

He also said the Legislature should not wait for the results of school finance lawsuits to deal with school funding problems.

Margo said he would support vouchers on an experimental basis next session. He said the lawmakers should first deal with pressing issues over state funding of public schools, accountability and whether charter schools will be able to expand their reach in Texas. Margo said the Legislature should wait for a decision from the courts before changing the way schools are funded.

The two candidates share some similar positions.

Both men support in-state tuition for qualifying undocumented immigrants. Margo and Moody also said they would oppose anti-sanctuary-city legislation if it is proposed next session.

Margo initially supported the anti-sanctuary-city legislation but changed positions after learning that El Paso County stood to lose millions of dollars in state money because of a settlement in a lawsuit.

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com; 512-479-6606.